CO.BRA Training Workshop for Young Research Team Members

Dr. Olaf Jahn, a CO.BRA core team research member, conducted a training workshop on the compilation of Caiman yacare signal free background libraries at the Institute of Biosciences, LETA, UFMT from June 23 – July 10. The participating new team members were introduced to identify and select soundscapes based on real-field audio recordings from CO.BRA´s Bioacoustics Research Project in the northern Pantanal. Following topics were covered during the nine-day workshop: (1) Acquisition of soundscapes with autonomous recording units (ARUs); (2) visualization of low frequency acoustic signals in spectrograms; (3) examples and characteristics of sound types emitted by the target species, including infrasonic vibrations; (4) screening of original soundscapes recorded at oxbow lakes for the presence of Caiman yacare sounds; (5) sorting of the screened files according to the number and intensity of Caiman yacare signals; (6) renaming of target signal free background files via a batch process; and (7) uploading of background files to the FTP server of the project. With such detailed technical expertice the new CO.BRA team members proceeded to compile background libraries required for the developement of an automated acoustic Caiman yacare detector.